In the Shetland Islands of Scotland, Remote Foula – Lynne Shapiro

Foula FowlFira Staad upo sko Four stand skyward
Address the sky
Men, birds, stones: Tell.
Was Norn last spoken here? The final vowels
pecked apart by skua? Or scooped
from an elder’s tongue and filched into the bluster
to re-circulate, turn-style, in the airstream,
same as the cheviot sheep switched endlessly
to fool the taxman, same as the island’s secret
currency I’d hoped to trade for a subway token
before flying home.

Lynne Shapiro lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her poems and essays have been published in the U.S., Canada, and England. In her work, urban culture meets an ever-present, transformative natural world that conveys a daily desire for freedom, magic, rootedness and authenticity. She recently co-edited “Dark as a Hazel Eye: Coffee and Chocolate Poems” for Ragged Sky Press and is currently working on a small book of poems and translations related to Moroccan djellaba buttons.